Review: Star Wars: The Crimson Empire Saga

As far as Star Wars stories go, it was OK. It goes along with Dark Empire in the immediate aftermath of Return of the Jedi. Everyone’s making their power plays after Emperor Palpatine’s death. I haven’t seen Star Wars VII so I don’t know what direction Disney has taken the franchise, but what I like about these pre-Disney Star Wars canon stories is that they show that rebellion is not just overthrow the Emperor and then everything is fine. There’s still an entire bureaucracy with some inertia and people who were doing just fine under the old system and would like to have it stay, thank you very much.

This particular story is about one of the dudes in the red costumes – the elite guard for the Emperor. It turns out that someone paid off the doctor who made the Palpatine clones to make them defective so he could be come Emperor. The royal guard, having sworn allegiance to the Emperor take this as offensive as if he’d killed the Emperor. So one guy decides to go after this traitor. His path intersects with the New Republic, but it’s a pretty boring story of little consequence. Skip it or read the original comic (I heard the audio book).